Coming Home
by Captain MeraSparrow
Summary: The moment James Norrington left the earth forever.


**Coming Home**

Ice was at his fingertips. Everything was cold, inside and out. The moon and stars froze in the sky. The waves and spray poured icy rain into the air. It was as though warmth had never existed. He breathed out, expecting to see a fog and was confused when there was none. When was the last time he had been warm? The last warmth he had felt had been those soft, tender lips against his own. That felt like an age ago, but wait, that couldn't be right. Voices and faces swirled around him and he struggled to focus on the crowd that was beginning to grow about him. He heard not their jeers and saw not their sneers. All he could see were her eyes. And from her sharp, angular face, like the treacherous but beautiful cliff sides of coasts where he had grown, there grew a cascade of writhing, undulating grey-green tentacles. Her visage morphed until she was no more, and a terrible sight stood in her place, towering and threatening; death itself. And Death bore down on him with a disdainful sneer. "Do you fear death?"

For a moment the icy fog in his mind thinned. Did he fear death when it meant the one he loved was safe? His numb fingers gripped desperately at the thorn at his side, and with a jerk, drove home his answer. It plunged into its target, but he could feel through the blade that it had entered a dark, hollow space where life should have beat. No, death was not something to be feared. Living an eternity feeling nothing – that seemed a fate worse than death. Heartbreak, loneliness, agony, grief; even when they dominated life, the brief sparks between them of joy, love, laughter, and beauty made them worth the suffering. It was better to feel horribly than not to feel at all, and as his arm fell and his breath hissed out and the world grew dim around him, he did not feel hatred, victory, defiance or fear. His final thought was how much he pitied that poor slimy slug that couldn't even feel the sword in his chest.

The beast – for it could no longer be called a person – slunk away, its shoulders squared in victory while its victim lay pitying it. The faces disappeared. Night fell over his eyes. Ice was inside him, and his senses failed him. Not the lapping of the waves nor the creaking of the deck, nor the warm night air did he know. The endless expanse of sky and sea suddenly seemed so finite, and though they had always been opposites seemed inseparable; entwined even when unjoined. And away from them he sank, deeper and deeper.

He was vaguely aware that he was being moved, though he could no longer see or hear those who were doing it. Eternity began to spin and suddenly he floated. They had thrown him away like a piece of garbage, useless and lifeless. Beneath the surface. This was where he would die. His home. The thing his heart desired above all else, even _her_. The place he belonged more than anywhere – not with his men, nor his family, nor the residences he had kept. It haunted his dreams and his waking thoughts. Its currents tugged at him, pulling him where they willed, and with spirits high he had eagerly followed. He was its faithful servant and its lover, and it would be here, in death as in life, that he would find peace.

And as he floated down and down, the coldness of the water matching the coldness inside him, it almost began to sound like the water was singing to him; as though the waves were giving up a final lullaby as their child at last succumbed to sleep. Yet that song was not for darkness; it was for waking. Though he was at his last, pale and slender hands caught him and bore him beneath the waves. Something warm was against him. A pair of lips on his, and there was breath again in his lungs. A very brief postponement this would have been alone – but many hands were upon him and the song was all around him, and warmth spread inside him. Beginning at the seed of the icy branches that warmth grew and blossomed. His heart beat again and his fingers felt, and last and first he opened his eyes and he saw them there, and they saw him.

Below him gaped the endless abyss. Above him lay the surface. His purpose above had been fulfilled. There was nothing more for him there. The darkness below did not beckon him, not yet. He would go to neither. He would remain here. He would never breathe the air or tread the ground again. He would become a child of the sea like those around him, and sing and dwell with them and guard the waves. This was his choice. This was his home. But most of all, this was his death and his birth. He had come home at last.


End file.
